


Down the Rabbit Hole

by sabaceanbabe



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Odesta, Quarter Quell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-31 10:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabaceanbabe/pseuds/sabaceanbabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Due to forces beyond their control, Annie goes back with Finnick into the arena...</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All They Want Is a Show

_she is drowning_

“…Anwyn Cresta.”

_she is screaming_

“Volunteer!”

“NO!” Hands covering her ears, Annie falls to her knees, not feeling the scrape of the searing pavement on her skin. “Oh, Mags, no!”

_she is sinking, fighting for air_

“…Finnick Odair.”

_nononononononononooooooo_

xXx

Warm. She is warm.

Warm arms hold her, warm breath musses her hair, warm lips touch her forehead, brush against her ear…

She stirs. The warm breath stops and the warm arms tighten around her.

“Finnick?” she asks. Her voice sounds rusty, feels rough.

Something warm and wet drips onto her cheek, trails down her skin to her lip, and she tastes salt.

xXx

Everything is a blur. However hard she tries, Annie can’t quite focus long enough or well enough to make things slow down. Nothing is real. Nothing save Finnick. He doesn’t let go of her hand, nor would she let him if he tried. Like a lifeline, he is the only thing anchoring her to the here and now.

The train pulls into the station in the Capitol and the sights and sounds, the colors and the smells all just add to the chaos in Annie’s mind. Peacekeepers lead them to a waiting car, gleaming black, that takes them to the Remake Center past hundreds of people screaming their names. Reporters, photographers, citizens…

All Annie wants to do is hide.

When they tear her hand from Finnick’s to take her into remake, she fights them, crying and struggling like some feral creature, like a mutt of herself, until Finnick stops her with a word.

“Annie.” Just her name, but she stops fighting to look for him in the chaos. Her eyes lock on his and he doesn’t look away. “It’s only for a little while.” His voice is calm, something she can cling to.

She blinks several times, lids fluttering like butterfly wings until finally she squeezes her eyes shut. _My name is Anwyn Cresta. My friends call me Annie. I am 22 years old. I am the victor of the 70th Hunger Games. I love Finnick Odair and he loves me. I am stronger than this. I can do this._ The stream of thought flows through her and over her in scant seconds.

Opening her eyes once more, she nods. “Okay,” she tells him, her voice startlingly strong. “I’m okay.” She blinks again and words come unbidden from her lips: “I love you.” Finnick stares at her. Martin Perch and Angel Banyan, their mentors for the Games, stare at her. Everyone close enough to hear her words stares at her and suddenly Annie wants to sink through the floor as the darkness threatens to swamp her again. She has done something unforgiveable. _No one is supposed to know about us._ But then Finnick smiles that beautiful smile reserved just for her and it’s as though a shaft of sunlight spears through murky water, turning it to gold.

“I love you more,” he tells her, loud enough for everyone to hear, not trying to hide anything, and she can breathe again.

xXx

They strip her naked, poke at her and prod at her, remove every bit of body hair, paint her and dress her, chattering all the while about how pretty she is, how soft her hair. It’s just like before and it’s hard for her to know where the past ends and the present begins. When they think she can’t hear them, they whisper behind their hands about her and Finnick. _Does he really love her? Are they really together, do you think? But there’s something wrong with her! She’s not good enough for him!_

She can’t help but think that they might be right.

xXx

Silk ribbons of green and gray and dark gold pull her hair away from her face to cascade over her bare shoulders and back. The third time she tried to hide behind the long, curling strands, they threatened to tie her hands together with matching ribbons. A net of sparkling, shimmering gold drapes _just so_ over her body, knotted to cover her pubis, and there are green and gray ribbons woven through it to more or less – mostly less – cover her breasts. Finnick’s costume covers even less skin than hers.

He takes her hand and they walk together into the elevator where Martin and Angel wait; as the doors close, Finnick pulls her into his arms and buries his face in her hair. At first she thinks that it’s to calm her nerves, or maybe his, but then he shifts and whispers in her ear, so low that only she can possibly hear it.

“We don’t have much time, so just listen. I’ll explain later, but I need you to plant the idea of alliance with Katniss Everdeen of Twelve. Haymitch thinks she might consider it, if it comes from you. She won’t have anything to do with me.”

Annie pulls back a little, just enough to look into Finnick’s eyes. “Alliance? With Twelve?” She doesn’t understand, but Finnick nods and before she can ask another question the elevator stops and the doors open and a wave of scent and sound rolls over them, perfume and horse, dirt and sweat, a hundred voices all talking at once. He squeezes her hand and he doesn’t let go when they step out into the cavernous room beneath the Remake Center.

xXx

The girl stands near a coal black horse, lightly stroking its cheek. “You’re Katniss Everdeen,” Annie says as she draws near and the girl turns wary gray eyes on her. Katniss’ eyes widen at Annie’s attire and Annie feels the heat rise, her face and neck becoming too warm, but the girl in the coal black bodysuit says nothing. “I’m Annie Cresta,” Annie offers, stopping a step or two away. “From District Four.”

“That’s quite the costume,” Katniss observes and Annie lets out an indelicate snort of laughter.

“I wouldn’t go so far as that.”

Katniss frowns and cocks her head to one side, still idly stroking the horse’s jaw. “So far as what?”

Annie grins. “So far as to call it a costume.” The girl’s face softens into something approaching a smile and the tension in her body relaxes, just a little. Annie’s nervousness fades as she and Katniss begin to talk.

xXx

The air along the parade route smells of fried foods and exhaust fumes and of horse, although the last isn’t nearly as strong as it was near the stables. The chariot speeds along the Capitol streets and Annie feels every bump and ripple in the road; she grips the chariot’s wave-shaped crystal railing to steady herself. Finnick presses against her, his arms around her. He rests his chin on her head and her hair flows in the wind of their passage to tangle with his – the Capitol has always preferred Finnick’s hair long. When she catches sight of them shimmering in their golden nets on one of the enormous screens that line their path – a pair of mythical creatures, fey and otherworldly – the intimacy in the way the bronze and chestnut strands of their hair entwine and tangle takes her breath away.

xXx

Annie studies the knife in her hand, tests the heft of it and runs the pad of her thumb along the edge, knowing that if she applies the slightest bit of pressure, she’ll bleed.

A man, blond and handsome, dressed in the same training uniform she wears, says something to her, but although she knows he’s there, she doesn’t hear whatever it is he has to say. Still holding the knife, watching the play of light on the flat of the blade, she walks away from him, but he follows her. He steps into her path and without thought her body takes over and sends him to the gymnasium floor. Annie finds herself kneeling on his chest with the knife at his throat. Shocked blue eyes meet hers as his body goes lax in surrender.

Behind her, Finnick laughs. “You can let him up now, Annie. I’m sure he’ll behave. Won’t you, Gloss?”

xXx

They move as one, skin glides on skin, heated where they touch, cool where they don’t. His breath ghosts over her throat, her chin, her lips as he moves inside her until his mouth closes on hers and their tongues slide over each other in a wet, sloppy kiss. He thrusts deep and she arches up against him, moaning and humming into his mouth as she begins to lose control until there is nothing left in her world but the feel and sound and taste of him.

She lets go, gives herself over to him and he follows her as she spirals up higher and higher and higher.

xXx

At the center of the room and the center of attention, Annie dances to a melody only she can hear. Her movements are fluid, graceful, deadly. Never still, always moving, Annie flows like water between her indistinct opponents and the knives she holds in each hand slice through the bright shadows; they dissipate in a shower of golden light. _They’re not real_ , she tells herself, over and over, as each new shadow slips into place to pick up the attack where the last one she destroyed left off.

Her dance grows faster and faster until she’s spinning and whirling, silken strands slipping free of the cord that binds her hair in a rope down her back. The renegade strands stick to her skin as sweat trickles and tickles down her neck and her back and between her breasts, drips stinging into her eyes. The gymnasium fills with pixilated sparks and sparkles of gold until finally a voice calls out, “Enough.”

Annie stops as her last shadowy enemies shatter and fall soundlessly to the floor, disappearing. She looks up toward the voice. They all watch her to see what she’ll do, but only one of them looks at her as though she might be human. She opens her fingers and allows the knives to fall to the floor with a clatter, nods to that one man, the head Gamemaker, and then she turns and walks toward the door. It’s a struggle to keep her back and shoulders straight, her head high, but she manages.

xXx

Curled into Finnick’s side, Annie doesn’t want to look at the television as Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith announce the training scores. She doesn’t want to watch, so she doesn’t, instead pushing her face against Finnick’s shoulder; he smells of clean clothes and soap and Finnick and breathing in his scent is soothing. His arm tightens around her and his fingers find hers, twining them together, hers and his, before lifting her hand to kiss her knuckles. She peeks up at him then, and he smiles at her.

District 1… District 2… District 3… Annie doesn’t want to hear the scores any more than she wants to see the people who earned them. People who will try to kill her. People she might have to kill. She burrows in again and Finnick makes a calming sound.

 _“And that brings us to District Four and our first surprise of these Games,”_ Flickerman declares.

 _“More surprising than learning Odair and Cresta are a couple?”_ Templesmith asks and Annie scrunches her eyes shut.

_“Indeed!”_

Annie hums to block out the sound of one of the men on the television shuffling papers and Finnick gives her hand a squeeze. “Hush, love,” he whispers. “We’ll be okay.” Annie looks up at him, straightens and sits up just in time to see the transparent image of her own face, glowing slightly in shades of gold, just like the shadows she fought earlier that day.

_“District Four’s Annie Cresta is something of a cipher. No one has any idea what she might be capable of…”_

_“I’ll bet Finnick knows,”_ Templesmith says with an exaggerated leer and Annie cringes. Finnick makes a sharp movement and a plastic cup bounces off the screen with a splash, leaving brightly colored trails running down the flat surface. Phineas LaSalle jumps to his feet with a wordless protest.

“Settle down, Phineas,” Finnick says as he relaxes back into her. “It was just water.” Martin laughs; Angel turns up the volume.

 _“But our esteemed Gamemakers saw fit to give the lovely Miss Cresta a nine.”_ Flickerman looks up from his paper and continues, _“She just might be a force to be reckoned with in this Quarter Quell.”_

xXx

Snip, snip, snip. Annie has done this a hundred times, it seems. The Capitol loves Finnick’s hair and so he must keep it long when he’s theirs. But now he’s hers, at least for a little while. Snip, snip, snip. The hair falls away in a bronze puddle on the floor and she brushes the remains from his neck and shoulders, his back. His prep teams will clean up the edges.

Leaning over his right shoulder, she nips at his ear as she reaches around to hand him the scissors.

“Your turn,” she whispers.

xXx

Finnick paces between the bed and the dresser. He stops when he hears the door open behind him and turns to face her, his hands dropping to his sides. He looks nervous and there’s a subtle tension in the way he holds himself, very straight and very still.

Her hand still on the doorknob, Annie stops, too. “You look so serious,” she says. “Is something wrong?” _No, Annie. We’re only waiting for our prep teams to arrive so they can dress us up for our last interview before we go to our deaths in the morning. What could possibly be wrong?_ She tells herself to shut up.

Taking two steps toward her, Finnick closes half the distance between them as he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He starts to say something, stops, starts again, but nothing comes out and Annie closes the rest of the distance, slipping her arms around his waist. He doesn’t take his hands out of his pockets, but he does press her arms closer and rest his cheek on the top of her head. It’s something he does all the time, but it feels different on short hair.

“I love you, Finnick Odair,” she tells him and he relaxes against her.

“You’re everything to me, Annie Cresta,” he whispers into her hair and the tickle of it is different, too. For a long moment they stay that way, just holding each other, drawing strength from each other. But then he takes a deep breath and pulls his hands from his pockets. Taking half a step back, he lifts his hands, tilts her head up to look at him and then cups her face between his palms. His gaze is intense when he says, “Marry me, Annie.”

xXx

A million years ago, Annie had waited backstage, barefoot and wearing a filmy seafoam-colored dress, for Caesar Flickerman to call her forth for her interview. She’d been nervous and, unable to remain truly still, she’d rocked from her toes to her heels, to and fro until she’d walked out onto the stage.

Little has changed since then, and yet so much. Tonight she can’t rock as easily because of the high-heeled shoes she wears. The dress is similar in color, but darker in shade and heavier in fabric; fitting her torso like a glove, the sea-colored faux seal skin shimmers under the bright lights when she moves. It matches Finnick’s kilt.

Standing beside her, holding her hand, Finnick strokes the soft skin of her wrist with his thumb; she doubts he’s even aware he’s doing it. Tribute-victors wait both before and after them in a line, just as they had five years ago. “Except for the victor part,” she says aloud before she can stop herself and Finnick glances at her, raising his eyebrows in question. The light caress of his thumb doesn’t stop. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

Just then the curtains part and Flickerman beckons them all to come forward across the stage and take their places, denoted by their district numbers on the floor. That’s a little bit different from her first Games, too.

Still holding tightly to each other’s hands, Annie and Finnick step into the spotlights.

xXx

Standing uncomfortably in front of Caesar Flickerman and what feels like thousands in the audience, Annie tries not to fidget. Her muscles all but quiver with the need to _move_ , it doesn’t matter how. Hands clasped in front of her, the fingers of her right hand twist the delicate ring of knotted string on her left ring finger, around and around and around. _Stop it, Annie. That counts as fidgeting, too._ She tries to concentrate on Flickerman, watching his lips form words that become a question; she’s so intent on _not fidgeting_ and on the slight purple cast to his lips that what he says doesn’t sink in right away. When it does, her heart seems to stop beating.

“That’s an unusual ring you have there, Annie. Is that your district token?” He looks at her expectantly, what’s meant to be an encouraging smile on his face, but his teeth are too white, too perfect, and his lavender hair looks plastic. Nothing about the man is reassuring.

Resisting the urge to cover her ears, she can’t quite stop playing with the ring – _It’s my wedding ring, Caesar. Finnick and I married each other before dressing up like dolls for you all to play with_ – and a laugh escapes her lips before she can stop it. Finnick stands a good ten feet behind her and she can’t look at him – everything about _him_ is reassuring – but she catches a glimpse of him in a monitor over Flickerman’s shoulder. He looks relaxed, even a little bored, unless she looks at his eyes.

Sucking in enough air to make herself a little light-headed, Annie says, “Yes, it’s my district token.” She and Finnick aren’t exactly hiding their relationship anymore, but he’d still said, just before joining the other victor-tributes backstage, that it might not play as well to the sponsors to let everyone know about the vows they’d made only moments before.

“And how about that training score?” Flickerman asks, turning a little toward the audience and raising his arms, encouraging their input; they oblige him by loud applause, by whistles and by shouting her name. “Can you give us a hint of what you showed our esteemed Gamemakers, Annie?”

On safer territory, Annie smiles. With another glance at the screen, at her now at ease husband – _husband!_ – she takes a step closer to the talk show host and stage whispers, “I’m afraid that’s a secret, Mr. Flickerman.”

xXx

The voice of the crowd is deafening. Annie stands with the other victors on the stage listening to the screams and cries Peeta Mellark’s words sparked. _Poor Katniss. Pregnant and going into the arena... Can there be anything worse than that?_ she thinks as she slips her hand into Finnick’s. His fingers interweave with hers and he lifts her hand to his lips, brushes his mouth over her knuckles before letting their joined hands drop once more.

On her other side, the man from District 3 touches her hand and Annie instinctively recoils. Frowning slightly, she looks over at him; looking back at her, he nods and reaches for her hand again. Out of the corner of her eye, Annie glimpses an image of the victors on one of the monitors that shows all of them standing together in a nearly unbroken line. The only ones not holding hands are herself and Beetee from 3.

Heart hammering in her chest, Annie takes Beetee’s hand.

xXx

She falls, but a hand catches her arm, pulling her up short. The crowd and the darkness press in, suffocating her even as strong fingers dig into her forearm; she can almost feel the bones shift.

“Easy. I’ve got you.” Not Finnick. Her husband is somewhere ahead of her in the dark.

The lights had cut out abruptly and the crowd had begun to scream. Finnick and Beetee both were torn from her grasp; she’d had little choice but to follow the ghostly form of a Peacekeeper, shouting for them all to move, move, move.

“Watch your head,” the man tells her, his grip still firm – though no longer crushing – on her arm.

Annie ducks her head as he pushes her into the limousine and then follows her in. Cecelia from District 8 is already there, in the seat across from Annie. Beside her sits Seeder from District 11. Annie looks over at Brutus, sitting beside her now as the car begins to move. She stares at him, wondering why he helped her, why he was so nice to her while he was doing it.

After a moment, Brutus shrugs. Answering her unasked question, he says, “I’d rather your boyfriend try to kill me because of the Games than because I stood by while something happened to you before they even started.” Annie stares at Brutus for a moment longer before she begins to laugh.

xXx

She listens to the steady beat of Finnick’s heart. He’s no more asleep than she is, but neither of them says anything. There’s too much to say and not enough time in which to say it. In only a few hours now, they’ll be back in the arena. One or both of them might die, in spite of the plans Finnick whispered to her on the roof the night before. She lies there in her husband’s arms, wishing for a miracle, and gradually drifts to sleep.


	2. Into the Arena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Slowly Annie becomes aware of her surroundings, but that awareness is not reassuring..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long! I guess life happens...
> 
> Unbetaed, so if you see any glaring errors, please let me know. :)

Slowly Annie becomes aware of her surroundings, but that awareness is not reassuring. It’s hot and it’s humid and it smells of the sea, salty and tangy, but the sky that should be a brilliant blue is instead a deep and deeply unsettling pink. Frowning, she looks down at the platform on which she stands; it’s just large enough to accommodate her feet with only bare inches to spare. Dazzling water surrounds her, reflecting the sun in a blinding glare. The light itself feels as though it weighs her down.

That’s when everything comes crashing in – hearing her name called; Mags volunteering, collapsing, dying before she ever took the stage; Finnick reaped; the blur of training, bonding with the other victors, knowing that most would be dead soon; she and Finnick saying their vows to each other less than twenty-four hours ago; waking this morning in his arms and the promises he made, reassurances that there was a very real chance they might both make it out of the arena alive. Hope and terror vie for her reality and she has no idea which will win out in the end or if she’ll slip sideways into her own mind and lose everything.

Raising a hand to shade her eyes, Annie shifts, looks around at the arena. The countdown had ended long since, the gong sounding the beginning of the Games, but half of the other twenty-three people in the arena with her still stand on their plates, surrounded by that glittering water, deep and dark, waiting to drag them under. Annie shudders. She hasn’t done more than splash in the shallows at home since her Games. Unlike those around her, she knows very well how to swim, but she can’t bear the thought of entering that salty lake.

“You have to,” she tells herself aloud. The nearest land is a narrow strip at least thirty feet to her right; whether she goes to the jungle that surrounds the lake or to the Cornucopia on its island in the center, she has no choice but to swim or to die. She turns toward that island where the Cornucopia glints beneath that too-bright sun and she squints, bringing the alien, insect-like thing into better focus.

There! She’d know that bronze hair and athlete’s body anywhere. Finnick and a girl with a bow in her hands and a dark braid over her shoulder circle the horn together, disappearing on the other side. Her Finnick has found his “girl on fire.” He’s alive and Katniss Everdeen is alive and the rebels’ plan must surely be alive.

Movement to Annie’s left catches her eye as a man lowers himself to sit, feet dangling in the water, but makes no move to leave his plate. Katniss’ district partner. Finnick told her that Peeta Mellark is just as important to their plan as Katniss herself, if only because Katniss won’t move forward without him.

Taking a deep breath and forcing her demons – near constant companions for the last five years – back into their dark hole, Annie closes her eyes. “You can do this, Annie,” she whispers and dives into the water, cool silk where it touches her skin. Focusing on the feel of it and not on the roaring in her ears – _not real, not real_ – she strikes out for Peeta. He may not know how to swim, but she’s strong enough to swim for them both. She hopes.

xXx

Everything is green. The soft ground. The rocks and roots that lie beneath the surface loam. The vegetation and the light that filters through it. Even the air feels green. And wet.

Sweat drips from Annie’s scalp, trickling through her hair and into her eyes, tickling its way down her face and neck, between her shoulder blades, between her breasts. So much moisture, but nothing to drink. Hours trudging through the jungle in what she is sure are Gamemaker-induced circles and no water anywhere save for the salt around the Cornucopia. None of them are foolish enough to drink that, at least not yet. But if they don’t find fresh water soon, as they grow more desperate for anything to quench the thirst…

She concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other, trying to be mindful of those roots and rocks even as ahead of her Peeta trips, his artificial leg betraying him once more. She takes another step and catches his elbow, steadying him. Chaff stops and turns and when he sees them standing there, he starts back toward them, but Peeta waves him off.

“I’m okay. Keep going.” He glances at Annie, searches her face, no doubt seeing how much she’s fading. “We need to find water.”

xXx

One. Two. Annie feels each cannon boom reverberate through her body. Three. Four. She lifts her hands, desperately covers her ears. Five. Six. Seven. It does no good. She still hears them, still feels the sound rising up from the ground and raining down on her head long after it stops.

“Please. Not Finnick,” she begs – the Gamemakers, Snow, whoever will listen, even though she knows it’s already done. “Please.”

xXx

She stumbles. Falls. Stares stupidly at the ground. Her mouth feels like it’s full of cotton and her blood boils beneath her sweat-slick skin.

“Annie.” A strong hand grips her arm, fingers digging in. She blinks sweat from her eyes.

“Finnick?” she asks before she can stop herself, but she knows that’s wrong.

“No, Annie. Peeta. I’m Peeta.”

She pushes up from the ground, helping him to help her to her feet. She stares into worried blue eyes in a pale face. No, not Finnick.

“We’ll camp here.” She turns her head and focuses on the dark-skinned man with only one hand and it takes her a moment to dredge up his name from her memory.

“Chaff,” she croaks, her attention drifting once again to the deep green foliage beyond him, to the gray-brown dirt beneath their feet, to the shaft of sunlight piercing the canopy of green above. _Are we in a clearing?_

Dust dances in eddies within the beam of light, sparkling like flecks and flakes of gold. Movement in the trees and undergrowth catches her eye: a large, rat-like creature trundles along the edge of the clearing, sniffing and snuffling. To her left, Chaff and Peeta discuss water. Annie hears her name, but doesn’t turn, doesn’t move to join them. Instead she stares intently at the vegetation along the rat’s path. _There has to be water here somewhere…_

Frowning, Annie takes a step forward, sticks and leaves and rocks crunching. The rat skitters away, scrabbling rapidly up the nearest tree and Annie looks down at her feet, where there’s nothing but soft, sandy dirt.

Everything snaps into focus as adrenaline rushes through her, temporarily washing away the disorientation. With renewed energy, Annie springs toward the trees and her fingers close in a vise grip around a thin wrist. She yanks hard and the woman screams, trying desperately to pull free, to return to the camouflage of the trees.

“Annie. Let her go. She’s a friend.”

Staring at the sallow-skinned woman in her grasp, gray-streaked brown hair a wild corona around her face and huge brown eyes darting back and forth between Annie and Chaff, Annie abruptly releases her and steps back. The woman runs to Chaff and he puts his arms around her as she pushes her face against his chest.

“One of the morphlings,” Peeta says.

“Her name is Linna,” Chaff responds. “She’s one of ours.”

xXx

Annie sits at the edge of the clearing, watching Peeta and Linna draw shapes in the dirt while she weaves a rope from the vines that all but drip from the trees. The fibrous vines, lumpy where she stripped off the leaves, feel nothing like the ropes Finnick used over the years to teach her to tie knots, but the motion of her fingers calms her, makes her feel closer to him, wherever he is. He can’t be dead. She’d know. Wouldn’t she? The memory of the cannons earlier that afternoon makes her shudder and clench the vines more tightly. She jumps when Chaff hunkers down in front of her and hands her something that looks like damp cardboard.

“Suck on this,” he tells her and Annie blinks.

“Excuse me?” Dropping the half-formed rope to the ground, she tentatively takes the thing Chaff offers as he grins at her and winks and she feels laughter bubble up in her throat.

“Tree bark. There’s water in it. Enough to survive on, I hope.” Frowning suspiciously at the drops of moisture along the edge, Annie gingerly takes the bark. “You might have to chew on it a little,” Chaff tells her. “Soften it up.”

The bark is rubbery, sponge-like, and when she bites down, a burst of tepid and earthy-tasting water bursts over her tongue. She’s never tasted anything so sweet.

xXx

The air grows no cooler with the sunset; the jungle traps too much humidity beneath its canopy for that. There’s no breeze at all and Annie feels sweat trickle down the back of her neck and into her collar.

Hoping to cool her skin by even half a degree, she runs her fingers through her hair, the feel of it since she cut off its length still a little weird. How many times had Finnick twisted it in his fingers, braided it into one thick rope down her back or dozens of thinner cords to lay scattered across her shoulders? But her hair is gone, now, and for all she knows, for all that she believes she _would_ know, Finnick might be gone, too.

The thought hits her like a knife thrust into her heart and she gasps at the pain of it, lifts her hands to her head, covers her ears as if that might keep both the memories and the fears at bay.

xXx

The anthem of the Games rings out over the arena, and try as she might, Annie can’t force the sound out of her ears or out of her head. The faint light of those stars that are visible in the darkening sky directly above the clearing disappears as the phantom light of the combined seal of Panem and the Games fades in, somehow centered in the space. She bites her lower lip and lets her hands drop, wraps her arms around her knees and stares up at the sky, rocking back and forth. _Please please please…_

The music rises to a crescendo, pauses, holding the note, and then it fades out as the light above changes and a face forms.

She stiffens when Chaff lays his hand on her shoulder, sucks in a deep breath when Peeta slips an arm around her waist. Linna scoots in close, too, and the four of them huddle together as the faces of the dead play out in the sky above: Gloss from District 1, Hamilton from 5, Trayn from 6 – Linna whimpers and buries her face in her hands – Woof from 8, Rye and Kasha from 9, and Sanga from 10.

Suddenly Annie can breathe again, even as guilt washes over her when Chaff moves away to comfort Linna on the loss of her district partner. Annie closes her eyes. Seven dead, but none of them Finnick, and all she can think is _thank you thank you thank you_. It’s not until Peeta squeezes her shoulders that she realizes both that she said it aloud and that he feels it, too.

xXx

She has wandered through the jungle for what seems like days. Everything looks the same – trees, vines, exposed roots to make footing treacherous. A cloying mist weaves through it all, whispering _he’s gone... you failed him… you’ll never see him again…_ The mist smells faintly of roses, of blood, of rotting vegetation and something harsh and metallic.

“Finnick, please! Where are you?” she calls, her voice ragged and torn, but the only answer comes from the voices in the mist. Still she searches, never stopping, endlessly calling for him.

A cannon speaks, punctuated by low laughter and Annie wakes, shouting Finnick’s name.

“It’s okay, Annie. Just a storm. Go back to sleep.”

“Finnick?” she asks, groggy, still half trapped in the clutches of the dream.

“No. Peeta.” She hears him shift and then he moves into view, keeping an eye on their surroundings even as he steps closer to where she lies. The sky lights up overhead, a world-encompassing strobe. There is no answering thunder, but Annie’s sure this is what woke her.

“Lightning,” she says. “Not a cannon.”

Peeta shakes his head. “No cannons. The first bolt hit a tree, though, so maybe that’s what you heard.” He glances toward Chaff and Linna, curled together a few feet away. “You should go back to sleep, Annie. I’m good for a while longer.”

She nods and settles back down on the ground as another streak of lightning splits the sky. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to fall back to sleep again, isn’t sure she wants to, but Peeta is right, she should at least try.

xXx

Sitting at the edge of the clearing, a little away from the others, Annie adds more vines to the rope she’d started the day before, working them in almost seamlessly. She doesn’t know how long she wants it to be, just that a rope might be a good thing for them to have in case of need.

Peeta and Chaff are trying to convince Linna that it’s time to move on, that they’ve stayed in this clearing too long already, but the older woman refuses to budge. Annie had suggested that they carry her, if she won’t walk on her own, but the men aren’t ready to take that option yet. Eager as she is to search for Finnick, she doesn’t want to leave Linna here alone any more than she wants to strike out on her own.

Barely mid-morning, and already it’s sticky-hot, not a breath of air moving through the trees and tangled undergrowth. Sweat trickles into her eyes and she brushes it away, the end of the unfinished rope trailing on the ground and over her ankles. It’s not until she starts working on it again that she feels a tug on the rope, but when she looks in the direction of the tug, the rope lies in a patch of light on the ground, unmoving, like a snake basking in the sun.

When she reaches toward the unwoven vines, something trails along the shell of her right ear and then down her neck. It feels like a finger, like Finnick playing, and she jerks away, turns toward the touch, but there’s nothing there. Heart racing, Annie scrambles to her feet, one hand on the knife at her waist and the other holding the rope as she stares into the trees, but nothing moves. She backs quickly into the clearing, but stops suddenly, afraid to so much as exhale when she feels a ghost of breath over her right ear, hears the faint directionless sound of laughter.

“Annie?” Peeta breaks away from Chaff and Linna. “What is it?” he asks when he’s beside her.

Forcing herself to breathe again, she asks, “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

More laughter as ghostly fingers comb through her hair. She lifts her hand from her knife to bat at whatever it is.

“Don’t you see that?”

“See what?”

Peeta stares at her. They all stare at her, judging her. “I’m not crazy.”

“Annie, there’s nothing there.” Peeta’s voice is gentle, but when he reaches out to touch her shoulder, Annie flinches away…

… and stops when she backs into something solid. A gust of sound escapes her lips before she can bite it off as hands grip her arms, fingers pluck at her hair. _This can’t be real. There are too many hands._

“But there is something there.” Linna pushes up to her knees, eyes wide; she points at something on the ground near Annie’s feet. “Can’t you see? We have to stay here.”

“Stop it!” Annie cries, stepping away from Peeta, batting at the ghostly hands. She can feel them plucking at her clothes, too, pinching when they don’t immediately get a hold on the skin-tight fabric.

“Annie, there’s noth…” Peeta stops. “Do you smell that?”

Annie smells nothing, sees nothing, but she feels those awful hands touching her, hears that cruel laughter all around her. “I can’t stay here.” She begins to run for the edge of the clearing, but stops when Linna screams.

“No! You can’t! Annie, you’ll die!” Annie turns toward Linna, every nerve ending in her body vibrating with the need to run.

“I think something’s burning,” Peeta announces.

There’s a tug on the rope Annie had forgotten was still in her hands. She looks up at Chaff, tries to pull away even as he wraps one end of the rope around her wrist and pulls it tight, but it’s too late. Trapped and frightened, she reaches for her knife as Chaff walks away from her and snares Peeta before stalking purposefully toward Linna, who has retreated once more to the center of the clearing.

“Annie’s right,” Chaff states. “There is something in this damn clearing – I’m guessing some kinda gas – and we are getting out of here.” With that, he heads into the trees, towing his allies behind him.

xXx

Sound returns first, washing over Annie like a summer rain before the deluge begins, spitting at her in dribs and drabs, a word here, a heavy exhalation there, and then opening up on her, overwhelming in its intensity.

“—more worried about Annie, to be honest.” The voice belongs to Peeta. “She’s barely moved since we stopped here. And if the Careers find us, with her like that…”

Squeezing her eyes shut, holding her breath, Annie curls tighter into herself, trying to escape the sounds and the newly returned sensations and smells – the too-rich loamy smell, the dripping rot of the jungle, the almost greasy sweat sliding down her nose, tickling as it drops to the dirt scant inches beneath her face.

 _Stop it, Annie_ , she tells herself. _This isn’t you. This is what_ they _want you to be._ They. President Snow. The people of the Capitol. Even some of her own people, those from the other districts, the poorer districts, those who feel better about themselves and their districts to see a “Career” brought so low.

“My name is Annie Cresta,” she whispers. Scrabbling in the sand and dirt as she pushes herself up onto her hands and knees, she catches sight of the ring Finnick wove for her from a piece of string. Bits of sand and dirt scratch at her knuckles, get caught under her ragged fingernails as she makes a fist, holding the ring safe on her finger. Surprised she hasn’t lost it, she says, louder, “My name is Annie Cresta _Odair_. I am the victor of the 70th Hunger Games and I won’t let me defeat myself.”

xXx

Annie dodges a blow from Cashmere’s sword, pivots on one foot and comes in low with both knives, from in to out, opening a gash in the other woman’s abdomen and hip. Blood sprays, striking Annie across the eyes as Cashmere snarls like an angry lion. Dashing the blood from her eyes, Annie dances backward, readying herself for a blow that never comes as Linna slams into Cashmere, sending her flying into the side of the Cornucopia.

A shadow with a spear crosses her line of vision and she shouts a warning half a second before the shadow resolves into Brutus. The spear hurtles toward Linna to stick in the metal skin of the giant horn where the other woman’s head was a moment before, but the morphling is already on the move, darting over the rocks toward one of the land bridges. With a curse, Annie scrambles to grab another knife on her way past the pile to follow Linna.

“Peeta!” she shouts. “Chaff!” Linna is fast, when she wants to be, and the slick, rocky footing is treacherous. Annie hopes the others can follow as she sprints after Linna, not sure even she will be able to keep up.

xXx

Another shriek splits the air and Annie pulls her remaining knife from another monkey corpse, but for every one they kill, there seem to be a dozen more to take its place. She hears a grunt and whirls around, sees a mutt clinging to Chaff’s back, mouth open wide to sink its fangs into his neck and shoulder. Without thinking it through, she hurls her knife and breathes a quick sigh of relief when it finds a home in the animal’s throat. Chaff flings it off and Annie rushes to retrieve her knife.

xXx

Lungs heaving, muscles burning, Annie runs. She feels as though she’s been running for hours.

Chaff bulls his way through the trees, leading them toward the beach and the salt lake beyond, while Annie and Peeta carry Linna, bleeding heavily from the gaping a hole in her stomach, courtesy of one of the deadly monkeys that have only just stopped pursuing them.

Peeta stumbles, his prosthetic leg caught by a vine, and both he and Linna fall hard. Peeta cries out, manages to keep from falling onto Linna, but she makes no sound when she hits the hard ground. Annie stops, shouts for Chaff, and runs back to the fallen pair without bothering to wait and see if he heard.

Linna stares up at the trees with clouded eyes. One hand scratches at the dirt. Her mouth opens and closes as she gasps for air.

“She’s dying,” Annie says, looking from Linna to Peeta, “isn’t she?”

Moving to sit beside Linna, his bad leg out to the side, Peeta strokes the hair from the older woman’s eyes. Without looking away from Linna, he says, “Yeah, she is.” He takes hold of Linna’s hand. “It won’t be long now, I don’t think.” The sheen of bright red blood staining black and white fabric draws Annie’s gaze and she can’t look away. A buzzing begins in the back of her head, grows louder as Peeta talks gently to Linna about colors and paints and canvases.

She doesn’t know how long she stares at the blood when a bird flies past her head so close its wings fan her hair. Her eyes track it until it lands on a vine that stretches across the path Chaff broke through the undergrowth. A cannon sounds as the bird fixes black eyes on her and Annie shivers, looks down at Linna once more.

“She’s gone,” Peeta says unnecessarily. Another bird flies in from above to land on a tree limb behind Peeta as he gently lifts Linna’s head from his lap and shifts out from under her. Lowering her just as gently to the ground, he looks up at Annie. “We’d best get moving again. The hovercraft will be here soon.” She moves in closer and helps him up when his bad leg won’t cooperate.

They turn to continue down the path to join Chaff, who must surely be on the beach by now, when Annie stops, pulling Peeta back, too. The bird on the vine has a handful of friends, nearly a dozen of them clinging to the vine, dragging it closer to the ground below.

“I don’t think those are normal birds,” she says, her heart suddenly jumping in her chest.

That’s when the screaming begins.

Peeta’s eyes go wide. He jerks his hand from Annie’s, looking around wildly for the source of the sound. “Katniss!” He starts to run but almost immediately goes down when his prosthetic strikes a rock. “Katniss!”

A man’s voice joins the first, coming from the same direction. “Finnick,” Annie whispers, hurrying to Peeta to help him up again. She pulls his arm up around her shoulder, gets an arm around his waist and tries to jerk him upward as panic races through her veins along with her blood. She’s never heard Finnick’s voice infused with such pain and fear, not even during the worst of his nightmares.

They start to run as the screams – Finnick and Katniss – intensify, both Annie and Peeta filled with the need to find them, to make whatever is hurting them stop. A bird swoops toward Annie’s head and its talons grasp her hair, dig at her scalp, but she doesn’t waste the time to wave it away. All she knows is that she has to help Finnick.

More and more birds fly at them as they run, but it’s only when Peeta stops running and shouts, “Annie, wait! Stop!” that she realizes there are only two voices issuing from hundreds of mouths.

Arms pinwheeling, birds crashing into her, screaming at her, Annie stops, but some of the birds don’t. They fly past her and hit an invisible wall in a shower of sparks and smoke and the air suddenly smells of cooked meat. And still Finnick and Katniss scream. More birds fly at Annie’s head. She turns away from the deadly force field, back toward Peeta.

“Jabberjays. They have to be.” He has to shout so that she can hear him over the screams. He holds out a hand to her. “C’mon! They’re trying to drive us into that.” He nods his head toward where the birds died. “We have to get out of here.”

With a choked sob, Annie takes Peeta’s hand and together they run back the way they came, following the trail of broken branches and disturbed vegetation from their previous headlong flight.

The light grows brighter as the trees grow thin closer to the edge of the jungle. Beyond that edge, bright sunshine burns down onto the pale sand of the beach and Annie can see people there, not just Chaff, but she only has eyes for one man. Finnick is there. He’s alive and he’s pounding on something Annie can’t see, screaming something Annie can’t hear. She puts on a burst of speed, desperate to reach him even as his voice continues to surround her in a symphony of fear and pain.

 _But the jabberjays. They’re just birds. They can’t really hurt me_ , she thinks as she runs into whatever it is Finnick has beaten his hands bloody on, trying to reach her. He’s right there, his wild eyes focused on her, but they can’t touch. Beside her, Peeta falls to his knees and rests his forehead against the invisible barrier as Katniss does the same on the other side.

“Not real,” Peeta mutters, over and over, a never-ending litany. “Not real.”

Finnick stops screaming, stops pounding at the barrier. Tears clouding her vision, Annie traces a finger around one of his bleeding hands. He watches her every move from the other side, his chest heaving as tears of his own streak his face. Birds still screaming with his voice, flying at her and at Peeta, Annie and Finnick slide down the barrier until they’re sitting beside each other, palm to palm.


	3. Reunited

Annie slowly becomes aware that the barrier between her and Finnick is gone. Instead of leaning against an unyielding but invisible surface, her shoulder touches warm flesh; strong hands, sticky with drying blood, engulf hers. Finnick squeezes her hand too tightly, squeezing almost to the point of pain, but the contact is so very welcome for all that.

“Annie,” he murmurs, her name barely audible even as close together as they are. “Annie, don’t leave me.” The jungle is as heavy as death and as silent, save for Finnick’s whisper. “Please don’t leave me. I need you.” She opens her eyes, focusing on her husband’s face. The jabberjays are gone, flown away, taking with them their cruel mutt voices.

“Oh, my love…” She lifts their joined hands to her lips, reaches for his free hand, as bloody as the one she already holds. “Your poor _hands_ …” That barrier had been invisible, but she knows just how solid it was, no Gamemaker illusion or sleight of hand. He must have tried to tear it down, to break through it somehow. She kisses his knuckles, the taste of copper and salt lingering.

Shaking his head, Finnick smiles. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, Finnick, that isn’t true.”

Pulling his right hand from hers, he starts to stroke her face with the backs of his fingers, but when he sees the blood, he lowers his hand and pulls her in closer, kissing her forehead instead. “You’re alive, Annie. _We’re_ alive. And we’re together.” He buries his face in her hair. “I thought I’d lost you.” His voice is so thick with remembered fear she barely understands the words. “I _can’t_ lose you.”

He kisses her then, and everything else fades away. The other victor-tributes, the jungle, the ever-present cameras and microphones – they all cease to exist when his mouth meets hers, replacing the metallic tang of blood with the salty taste of tears.

*

The sun pounds down on the beach beyond the shade of the jungle. The water is still, its surface like glass, reflecting and intensifying the heat of the sun. There’s not a hint of breeze to cool the thick air.

Finnick sits with his back against a tree at the jungle’s edge, looking out toward the water, absently twisting the ring of string encircling Annie’s finger, the moss bandaging his hands rough against her skin. Her back is against Finnick’s chest, his arms and legs around her in a protective shell, his chin resting lightly on her head. He listens as the others make their plans, occasionally interjecting a comment or question; Annie listens only to the rhythmic thump-thump of his heart, the soft susurrus of his breath as Beetee drones on and on about electricity and conductors. She feels safe for the first time in what seems like forever, no matter that it isn’t real. Succumbing to the heat, to physical and emotional exhaustion, her eyes drift closed. Secure in Finnick’s arms, Annie sleeps.

*

The afternoon sun is bright and warm on Annie’s face, the sparkling water nearly blinding with reflected light. The sand is warm, too, where she sits on the beach, her legs folded in front of her. She watches Finnick, standing thigh-deep in the water hunting fish for their supper. Beyond him, Peeta and Katniss swim, or rather Katniss teaches Peeta to swim, if the splashing and flailing and occasional panicked shouts are any indication of his current level of knowledge. Finnick glances over at them before returning to his fishing. Annie can almost forget they’re in the arena, that one or all of them could die at any moment if the Gamemakers throw another set of mutts at them or the Career pack finds them.

Feet slip in the sand behind her and she tenses, but a moment later Cecelia lowers herself to the beach alongside her and she relaxes again. The two women watch as Finnick stabs with his trident at a fish beneath the water’s glittering surface.

“Mmm... Roast fish for dinner sounds much more appetizing than tree rats,” Cecelia says. “And it’ll go well with the rolls.”

Annie glances over at her. “Roast fish?” Her group hadn’t risked a fire the night before; she doesn’t see a need to risk one now. “Rolls?”

Cecelia nods, still watching Finnick. “From District Three. We used the force field to cook our meat last night.”

“But we’re nowhere near the arena’s edge,” Annie points out. “It would take at least an hour to walk there, wouldn’t it?”

Katniss dives when Peeta splashes water into her face; seconds later, she pulls him under. Finnick spears another fish and flips the business end of his trident up out of the water, the hapless creature flopping wildly. Pulling the fish from the trident’s tines, he slips it into a sack made of woven grass tied at his waist. Annie scoops up a handful of sand, idly lets it run through her fingers to add to a small cone in front of her crossed shins.

Cecelia sighs. “I suppose you’re right. Roasted fish would taste better, but it’s probably not worth the trek back through the jungle.”

With a shrug, Annie says, “Raw fish isn’t so bad.” She knows nothing about what 3’s rolls might taste like, but some kelp would be good with the fish regardless. She doesn’t recall seeing any seaweed in the water when she helped Peeta from his platform, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Not that she really wants to swim out to look for it. Shuddering, she tries to push the memories of her last arena back under as she picks up another handful of sand. Finnick starts sloshing toward shore.

“That’s a pretty ring.” Cecelia nods toward Annie’s hand. “District token? I saw Finnick wearing one, too.”

Without conscious thought, Annie closes her hand into a fist around a handful of semi-damp sand. Unsure what he might have told them, equally unsure what she should tell Cecelia now, tell all of Panem, really, and whether it might hurt or help them, she forces her fingers to relax. The sand falls in a sheet, turning her sand cone into a lopsided mass. Staring at it, Annie suddenly sees the caldera of her first arena, before the walls broke and flooded everything. She feels herself starting to slip into the dark waters of that flood; a moment later she jumps, gasping when cold water splashes over her from above.

“Wearing one what?” Finnick’s voice forces those waters back as he flops down on Annie’s other side, facing both women but a little apart from them. His trident lies within easy reach. The sack moves in his hand as though it were itself a living thing as he draws a knife from the belt of woven vines at his waist.

“I was asking Annie if the rings you wear are some kind of district tokens.”

Pulling a fish from the sack, Finnick quickly and efficiently kills it and guts it, blood staining the sand. He flashes a grin at Annie, forcing her to tear her gaze away from the red and focus instead on the white of his teeth.

“They’re wedding rings,” he tells Cecelia as he pulls a mass of bones from the fish. “Annie and I have been married for… What?” He catches her eye, grinning. “Thirty-six hours?” Inexplicably, Annie feels herself blush.

“You made them.” Cecelia glances from Finnick to Annie and back again. Her eyes hold sympathy, not celebration.

Finnick nods once, acknowledgement of that sympathy, his hands going still. “There wasn’t time for more.” His gaze meets Annie’s then, full of all the things he wants to say – _we can do this, we can survive this arena, we can be free, and once we are there will be time_ – but can’t. He meets her gaze, his grin fading.

*

Tepid water fills Annie’s mouth, splashes across her face to drip down her neck into her suit. The same temperature as her skin, it feels like silk sliding along her cheek. Cupping her hands beneath the flow, she splashes more of it over her head to rinse away some of the sweat and the salt from the lake before picking up the grass bowl to fill.

She’s nearly finished filling the second bowl when Katniss calls, “Are you about done?”

“Almost there,” she replies, the flow slowing to a trickle. Setting the bowl beside the first one, she carefully pulls the metal spile from the tree and secures it to her belt. The spile is ingenious; drinking water from a bowl or even from her cupped hand is so much easier than trying to suck it from the tree’s bark. It tastes better, too, less gritty, or so she keeps telling herself.

“Did you hear that?” Katniss’ voice is mere inches away; Annie didn’t hear her approach. She holds her bow at the ready, an arrow nocked but the bowstring at ease. Tension thrums through the younger woman’s body as she stares intently deeper into the jungle. Holding her breath, slowly pulling the knife at her waist free, Annie takes one step, two, away from Katniss and the water bowls. A twig snaps. Katniss lifts her bow, pulls the arrow back, aimed toward that sound, but without a decent target, she doesn’t loose the arrow.

Sweat trickles from Annie’s scalp down her back, but she ignores the tickle. Flexing her fingers, she tightens her grip on the knife, wishing she had the rest of her throwing knives, but she lost them when Chaff dragged her and the others away from the ghosts. A flash a few feet to the right of where Katniss aims draws Annie’s gaze, metal reflecting the afternoon sun. She taps Katniss on the shoulder and gestures with her knife, silently mouthing, _I’ll take that one._ Gray eyes narrowed, Katniss nods, laughter drifting up from the beach just out of sight beyond the trees.

Leaves shudder and Katniss releases her arrow toward the spot, pulls another and nocks it in one smooth motion. Before she completes that motion, Annie charges toward where she saw the flash, shouting to draw the others. She thinks they face only two enemies, but she can’t forget what Finnick told her the morning the Games began: _If only one person leaves the arena alive, it has to be Katniss Everdeen._

She hits something solid and they both go down. Annie’s hand strikes an exposed root in exactly the wrong spot and her knife falls from suddenly nerveless fingers. Cashmere heaves upward, throwing Annie off and rolling away, reaching for the knife herself, but Annie scrambles toward it, her good hand falling on it half a second before Cashmere’s. She pulls it up and away, slicing Cashmere’s wrist in passing.

There’s shouting from the beach, but Annie ignores it, focusing instead on Katniss. Her bow lies on the ground. A man, head and shoulders taller than Katniss, has her in a vice grip, one of her own arrows held against her throat, the skin dimpling where the point of it touches. Annie feels Cashmere coming at her from the side, hears someone else crashing through the trees from the beach. She whirls, sweeping a leg at Cashmere; her kick doesn’t connect, but it does throw the Career off balance. She stumbles backward. Following through on the motion of her roundhouse kick, acting on instinct, Annie releases the knife.

As Johanna and Finnick arrive, Peeta not far behind, the man falls away from Katniss, Annie’s knife in his left eye. A cannon shot reverberates through the arena. As both Katniss and Annie fall to their knees, Annie hears the sound of Cashmere retreating through the jungle, Johanna a step behind.

*

Blood trickling in a thin, jagged trail over the hill of his cheek. Dead blue eye staring, wide in surprise, shock, disbelief. Body falling backward in an awkward crumple to the ground.

Annie can’t stop seeing it replaying in a loop in her mind, accompanied by a soundtrack of screams - hers, Finnick’s, Katniss’, the latter two borne on jabberjay wings. She huddles in on herself, eyes tightly shut, hands pressed hard over her ears, but nothing stops the awful sights and sounds. She doesn’t feel the water lapping at her feet or the breeze that picks up as the sun kisses the horizon.

Her hands can’t block the screams in her mind, instead serving only to muffle the voices of her allies, so she doesn’t hear it when Finnick joins her, but she knows it’s him when he gently strokes her hair and neck before he sits beside her. Annie opens her eyes to see his long legs stretched out into the water; she lowers her hands from her ears when he bumps her shoulder with his before leaning back on his arms. Relaxing just enough to look over her shoulder at him, she sees the worry in his eyes and in the lines of his face.

Annie shifts closer to Finnick, fits herself to his side and lays her head on his shoulder. Saying nothing, Finnick rests his head on hers. They sit that way in silence as the brilliant pink of the sunset fades to maroon and mauve and the pinpoints of stars begin to dot the darkening sky above. Even the screaming in her head subsides with him there, and the looped images fade away.

“I don’t even know his name.”

Finnick kisses her hair and shifts, folding his legs in front of himself as he pulls her into his arms. “Hush, love,” he murmurs into her hair. “You had no choice.” She hums a noncommittal sound, not convinced but unable to think of anything else she could have done. Waiting until one of the others could kill the man would have been just as bad, and it might have resulted in Katniss’ death, making it infinitely worse.

“Ewing.” Weaving the fingers of his right hand with her left, Finnick raises her hand to his lips. “He was a judgmental ass, but the man could sing.”

They sit there in silence after that, watching the sun disappear below the horizon. Just a faint tinge of pink remains when Johanna calls them to supper.

*

Cecelia gets her roast fish after all. While Annie sat at the water’s edge, replaying Ewing’s death over and over in her mind, Beetee and Katniss started a fire. The group consensus was that, because there are so many of them – nine victor-tributes – there’s no point in trying to hide. Even if the others band together to take them out, they still have the advantage of numbers.

Annie and Finnick join the others, walking hand in hand, as a parachute falls bearing a small basket filled with salt and pepper and dipping sauces to enhance their meal.

Laughing in delight, Cecelia remarks to Beetee, “I wonder if we’ll get some more of your rolls to go with the fish?”

As if on cue, another parachute descends. It lands near Wiress and she hurries to remove the cover. Staring at the contents of the basket with a look of shock on her expressive face, she goes utterly still.

“Wiress?” Beetee asks. “Is something wrong?”

She blinks rapidly. “Wrong. Wrong. What could be wrong?”

Katniss crouches beside Wiress and cautiously takes the basket. Frowning, she lifts a loaf of sliced bread, shaped vaguely like a fish. It has a subtle green cast, even through the golden brown of the crust, and Annie smiles for the first time in what seems like forever. When she looks up at Finnick, expecting to see the same pleased recognition, his expression isn’t much different from Wiress’ or from Johanna’s from where she stands beside Cecelia.

“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Katniss says. “It’s just bread from Four, Wiress.” Glancing over her shoulder at Annie and Finnick, she holds out the loaf in her hand. “It should go well with the fish.”

*

There are only two faces in the sky that night: Linna, who died from the wounds she received during the monkey mutt attack that afternoon, and Ewing, the man from District 10 Annie killed with a knife in his eye. When the hologram fades from the sky, Annie walks a little way away from the others, but not so far off that it might become too dangerous for her. Once she has that bit of privacy, if anything in a televised arena can be considered private, she leans her forehead against the trunk of a tree and lets the tears come.

*

Finnick stands ankle deep in the water, his trident in hand, watching toward the Cornucopia on its island. The moon is high overhead, shedding silvery light over everything. Annie can’t help but watch him and wish they were anywhere but here.

Giving herself a shake, she continues her circuit around their sleeping camp. There’s nothing apparently wrong, but still she feels uneasy. She shivers in spite of the heat, a chill running down her spine. Gran always used to say it was someone walking on her grave, a thing Annie thought was particularly creepy, since neither of them was dead.

Just as that creepy feeling reaches a crescendo, a flash of lightning rips apart the night sky, striking a tree in the jungle past the Cornucopia. Ignoring the aftermath burned into her retinas, Annie glances one last time at her sleeping allies before joining her husband at the water’s edge.

“The Careers are in the Cornucopia,” he says by way of greeting, and she takes a closer look at the golden horn glinting in the moonlight as another flash of lightning splits the cloudless sky. When her vision returns to normal, she sees the pale halo of Cashmere’s hair just before she disappears inside the metal structure.

Laughing, Annie says, “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the next strike will be on the island.”

Finnick grins down at her. “I don’t think so. The lightning seems to be confined to just that one part of the jungle. It won’t jump.”

Shifting the trident to his other hand, he pulls Annie closer until she fits against his side. Putting his arm around her shoulder, he kisses her forehead; she leans into him, slipping her arm around his waist. They stand that way, just watching the light show – and their enemies – for several minutes, until Annie breaks the silence.

“So are you going to tell me what was wrong with the bread?”

The more she thought about it, especially once she and Finnick started their watch and the others began to drift to sleep, the less Wiress’ shock at finding two loaves of pre-sliced bread made sense. Cecelia had mentioned rolls from District 3, Wiress and Beetee’s district, and while that might have explained simple disappointment at finding bread from District 4, it said nothing about either the older woman’s shock or Finnick’s equally odd reaction. Two loaves of bread, twenty-four slices total, and the only ones happy with it had been Annie, Peeta, and Chaff.

Finnick doesn’t answer immediately, instead swinging her around and into his arms. He still faces the Cornucopia and the Careers when he whispers softly into her ear, “It means a change in plans. Twenty-four rolls from Three. Twenty-four slices of bread from Four. It means we have to stay alive twenty-four hours more than we thought.” His voice is so soft she almost misses it when he says, “If we can.”


End file.
